Tantric Suffering

My response to Jivana's frustrations with attracting attention to her spiritual passion for Tantra Yoga, asking me, What's a Tantrika to do? 

Moses has pretty much revealed the twist that he his IMHO and I wouldn't reflect negatively on yourself ever where he's concerned. I do love bold effort, just can't follow someone who blinks on and off without proper time. Let's ignore sizzle and look for a successful Tantric business model that feels good to you.

Reconsider your free insight as more of a solid challenge more or less. This strategy echoed "the Bruce" masculine fix it, identify it, believe you're right, and if challenged, act with balls to the walls, win/conquer/overcome/solve vs evolve ... how? As your insight, this "solution - cultivation" had a reality of how many possible understandings? 1) understood - now if this is true, such a person has in reality nothing more to anticipate from you in the sense of an exchange, but despite the large numbers of those who will attest to this option, I'd venture in reality none understand your meaning, why? Because you used a strong western term to describe a predominantly eastern notion. The bridge or proper frame for this looks to me like a "teaching" which you could insert into your offer, expanding your value substantially. 2) uninterested with false ideas and beliefs governing the listener's ability to connect a greater value to their own cultivation over their habituated western response which puts any kind of pill at the top of the list of pros in their decisions.

This can opposed with the truth however it deserves a certain vicious level of shock in your attitude to complete it. Personally, I don't think once you understand the SHEER insanity involved that you would have any problem generating a little awesome rage to share with our idiotic western male minds. But for me I'd simply make a short list of some of their more popular drugs and then cut a few sound bites out of those pharmacological media ads which today are forced to acknowledge the risks involved. All I'm saying is that more times than not what I hear are symptoms (all serious to deadly) which mostly resemble the worst case scenarios for taking the drug in the first place or greatly increase the possibilities for suffering, including death. Tell me how hard it would be for you to work up that aspect of the "teaching?" And, I think this dimension is or was all that was missing for me.

Healing is easily one of the biggest institutions here in the west and it should be no surprise that any openness to anything outside of the box is altogether unheard for all the noise and warfare going on inside over the business of control and profit. So here's the one negative you present. I called old school but its really all about attempting to fit your service inside of box long ago stapled shut and put out of the reach mainstream medicine.

My advice would be to start small but in a way that is so solid and consistent that you generate a field of momentum not unlike that surrounding the corner 7/11 store. Evident in your own defense in the use of the words pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is a vision WANTING/DESIRING to bring those most important values which exist outside of the box were talking about to those committed to staying in the box. Though my explanation exists on a very high meta level of understanding, I feel most if not all sense this kind of disconnect in terms of westernized standards of pragmatic action.

Western masculinity loves to chew things up and if there is not enough to chew on because of authoritative levels of credibility (purpose of the institution) value falls through an all encompassing "snake oil" crack reserved for such disconnects of foreign offers which do not pay homage to the western man's need to BELIEVE enough to feel righteous in his decision. So, in so many ways it all comes down to understanding what the western paradigm can digest initially which I've given several pointers about regarding protocols of style. Faith is the big twist for western man because essentially his faith is only a mask of his ambition to conquer and feel righteous superiority over himself, versus a truly spiritual faith which is beyond the scope of these issues to get into.

What's a tantrika to do?  I suppose if it were me, I'd spend some time simply recreating a core community of tantrika fellowship, worship, and development where the spirit of Tantra as it exists alive today and now in you and your sister goddesses becomes ordered properly. In the fourth way, one of the gems that Gurdjieff had to offer was called the law of 3. It states that all of manifestation happens due to the interaction of 3 laws, called the law of 3. These three forces are called affirming, negating, reconciling  OR  active, passive, neutral.

The question for me to you about Tantra and more specifically what your offering has to do with whether or not it has stopped being the affirming force in your manifest existence. The second force called passive or negating can also be seen as forming a vessel or boundary in opposition to the affirming force. I don't think I have to get into the abundance of that force in the west today. The third force called neutralizing (in the sense of the conflict and tension imaginable holding the first two forces in check) and reconciling refers to skillful means and design in order to achieve whatever the desired result is one wants. So, for instance, a simple example of this is easily demonstrated by considering a canal.



Now apply this law to your complaint's basis in which your pitch appeared opposed by Tantric Ignorance. Great pitch, but a deeper look into western society shows the masters of the pitch achieving and manifesting nothing as our esteemed legislatures in Washington are currently chronicling in the worst way in America's history. Another little teaching not unlike the earlier one on negative side effects caused by the very drugs designed to relieve us of such and such.

OK...I've got to stop here but I hope the law of 3 helps you think about what you can do a little bit. More than anything else, for me, Tantra's source is the sacred celebration of all that is man and woman and how approaching the opposite sex from reverence and love authentically shows up as ecstasy and bliss leading one further into the divine mystery to which every successful step taken marks yet another chapter of man's real evolution and destiny.

At some level of course everything I just said can and will be reduced to Bruce's level, so then what is the difference that makes a difference for that NOT to happen? Have faith in your Tantric practice and let yourself receive the gift your mind cannot by itself produce nor generate enough energy to manifest even if it were so enlightened.

In a truly masterful and authentic offering then, one takes away a feeling of not having heard about something but a far higher and more energetic sense of having witnessed the truth and mystery. The real essence of Tantric beauty power and spirit occurs for me right here as I realize the perfect unfolding nature of reality in its ordered weaving of threads beyond my comprehension but consciously recognized RECONCILING being the fullest integrity of what is polarized in dualism, and blossoms as UNITY, a state beyond all words or language's ability to express.

Ahhhhhh, but you say, here now at this moment where do I start? If after reading my "take" here 3 times, if you still have that question, can we speak about it then?

love,rj

New Grips

Too fresh and young goes right for the throat and bruises.
Tonight, I thought of a new schizophrenia, added to my list
the old fav, a rite of passage, mental illness on borderline.
I was never so bored then, now keep list of craziest juices.
When Ricky G invented lying, and Jennifer G picked him
over Lowe, more than some heat - generated by that girl.
Matthew's is Some Devil; a genius; he is Shiva blessed.

I was shocked to find myself resisting avalanche of spirit
so late in life, while I spend my time pretending otherwise.
It's not the white light, blindness, dumbass, or the witness -
falling ever behind, it's how long the flight - before my time.
Nevermind what I want, Santa got lost - in this impossibility.
After awhile, learning to be patient makes no difference.

You had me before? I died and came back in some fog?
asleep, let the world imprint something external of fashion?
Now invisible, worn smooth, the stubborness still has grip.
Afraid of what letting go will bring forth, turns up the heat.
You take some extra special inhales, humming; for today
new color coordinated, cutting-edge grips, have arrived.

© 82010 rjduberg

The Tantric Mongoose

Women need clarification, according to Shantam Nityama (Mongoose), from men. This requires men to be in touch with the streets and to complete their relationship with mom. This means loving one's own energy without compromise, not dumbing down, or invalidating. ... 
I like this teacher's focus and his protege SashaCobra as well.

Electricity (positive-male) needs to be balanced with magnetic (negative). Male and Female is just another way of representing this.

Osho on Tantra

Tantra is one of the greatest treasures that is just lying there, unused.

The day humanity uses it, the earth will become aglow with a new love...
This very earth can be paradise...
It is impossible if you depend on nature.

It is very, very possible if you depend on Tantra.

-Osho

Hahahaha, I like it. Don't know what the frack it means, lol. What is your interpretation?

This is a keeper, a beautiful distinction of genius, and it goes towards the heart of what I am grappling with in my email to you REF: Dogma but doesn't actually pierce that sphere. Here all we see is that something entirely unnatural appears which I assume balances nature's law of entropy. Disiplined critical reason defeats entropy. Procreation defeats entropy. Invention, innovation, creativity - all defeat it.

The idea I presume has to do with raising one's IDEA + SENSE + EXPRESSION of love to a level bridging the infinite and unconditional. USE Tantra begs my earlier issues regarding the lack of any dogma or college of record. The internet simply will not do. It is organized to support profit control. What does Tantra have to support it, organize it?

~Liquid Rose of Being

Why do roses suffer the liquid of our being
so much we've grown yet so little sown
pining nature's story of pain.

And the beauty of the thorn seen in water
is made by the sight of its crown in blood.
The color is a match of hook and tackle.

My liquid rose to the lips where free.
What I don't drink falls to waste no place
One taste illuminates my shadow with grace.

rjduberg/1/2010

~In Light of Death

Shiva reminds us that nothing remains
except peace, love, and divinity, mysteries
outside the dominion of that destruction
where everything cycles in the end to begin.

Only man has this hint of possibility in him
A gift of being, in light of death, with divinity
balancing the ground of mystery to ascend
making liberty for consciousness, not death.

1/2010 revised

~The Jig of History

Oh Goddess have patience
see film, inglorious bastards
brad pitt slays nazis
witten killers

The Jig heads the highway
angelic on the beach
makes no mistake
is higher

Enjoy self in moderation
work the shadow
heal the path
forward

Don't forget posterity
USE a wicked wall
for the beyond
afterward

The Jig keeps the game afoot
from fades that recede
in ascending octaves
over time.

I know that I am worthless
call it the will to resist
affinity in conflict
or some such

Practical Magic?

1/2010 rjduberg

The Need for More Organization

Right now, in life, I have the urgent sense which sees me utilizing the last 5 minute window before I said I was going to be somewhere that takes me anywhere from 5-10 mins to get to, and then sometimes then some.

Lots to say about my research on Tantra Yoga. I guess the only thing I want to say is that people in that disipline work too hard, focus on money, among other things, and; I'm not saying that that stuff isnecessarily off or bad, the issue doesn't change if circumstances swing positive as I prefer them to be.

Biggest issue for me right now is time, and its relation to my assessments regarding the world in general. I'm not sure if I like the change or not, does that mean I'm not really a pragmatist?

Looking for a job still that doesn't include writing for one...

On Community Response

Burn, Baby, Burn.

I saw the post by Robin and my first thought on responding was not to, reflecting an attitude of non-identification. It's important to see that drama is a vortex that can become so powerful it can override and dominate a person's natural gravity and ground of being.

However, I just got done viewing Jim Carrey's YES MAN on MAX, a beautiful film starring Carrey and Zooey Deschanel (girl in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), just a continuous series of scenes in which YES becomes a mantra to situations most would never say YES to nor find even remotely appealing. The beauty of it for me was the humor. So here I am saying NO, contemplating the universal YES to everything often chimed by Tantric sloganeers, and still laughing over the possibilities created in Carrey's film. How could I not take advantage of this GREAT OPPTY to say YES and do some personal lab work of my own. Huh? Are you kidding? LOL

So, after reading your post, my assessment was anything like disgust, in fact. I totally got your active transformation, and enjoyed reading your writing about it.

The only thing I guess I can contribute is that assessment is absolutely natural and critical to life and how we judge the relative value of anything and everything. Negative assessments are just as important as positive ones. From others, as unique as each of us are, it really is counter productive to enter into debates or engage people's assessments. There personal in nature and as one comedian said, "I don't like applause, just throw money!"

In response to Robin's question, which was way too open-ended for me, I think a little context would go a long way in shifting the conversation to being valuable on the level of community which is where it seemed she wanted to take it. My choice is personal responsibility. So how can I respond and be personally responsible with my negative assessments within a community?

It seems to me, by doing the work of transformation, practicing Tantra, saying yes - creating lemonade from lemons, and whatever cliche you have to add to the list - the most important bets are covered. But what about those negative assessments in which we are so identified that we begin to feel disgust, for instance? What I do is create some space, take a break, get a cup of juice, go look at the waves, you know...

And then, ask yourself what your committed to, and consider how relevant the negative assessment is to that context. For the most part, a person's associated disgust is NOT a relevant assessment to the context called OneTantra because OneTantra is like a wave, it only carries information, itself a "community" of relations. Work on the community (how relations are configured, energized, weighted, integrated, etc., etc.) is something that takes place on an entirely different level and is outside the scope of this question. But, for anyone who has ventured to this site with any background in online communities, LOL, disgust is pretty much the overwhelming assessment to include - and Moses is responsibly addressing the source of it. Nuff said bout that.

So, after establishing what rank a value has...  well there it is. This is in my opinion the way to "DO" something about negative assessment on a personal level. At the level of community however, the question for me is whether or not such assessments actually exist at all. 

Suffice it to say, if you have a community based on a negative assessment, your going to promote the transformation of it. The real chore comes when personal negativity corrupts a community promotion. Communities have mandates with purpose. Responding to negative assessment is only valuable then when the assessment is regarding the health of the community.

Tantric Master - Barry Long

My inquiry into Tantra has not been very significant yet, except for the discussions I've participated on at OneTantra online. I was prepared to make a serious committment not too long ago to hands on training and study but my offer was not reciprocated properly or equitably by the instructor I contacted. NOW, one of the ladies at OneTantra mentioned Barry Long, which I spent a good deal of time last night briefly reviewing, when I ran into a wildly powerful teaching which was at the same time expressing much of the corruption which destroyed my relationship with the Fellowship of Friends Fourth Way School.

Additionally, I found years of blog posts, both praising and criticizing him. The manner in which he expressed himself was familiar to me as I read his words in a published interview with a journalist at an online magazine dedicated to enlightement and spiritual issues/teaching.

The egoistic lack of compassion and perversion he evidenced (2nd hand for me) said to me that there was a limit to his realization. This limit, this self-centeredness, was a mega contradiction to his teaching, something which was clearly echoed among his closer students' observations about how he would say one thing and do another. The response of course is no one can comprehend the behavior of a master, especially using ordinary social standards.

That's not going to fly with me, however, after reading quite a bit of him about his ideas and teaching, I cannot deny that I was left with a powerful impression regarding what he was offering in terms of a perspective on the relationship between men and women. Clearly, he made it up.  The thing I read which was the key to this was a statement regadrding how every 5 minutes men and women are constantly thinking about each other throughout the day. For him, this was something he expanded and USED to be creative regarding his higher realisations of mind.

I'm certain that there is a distinction between objective knowledge and subjective knowledge. What I've described here is a man who tasted objective states but returned to a very high subjective creative state and began to REASSEMBLE himself there. My bet is that his mechanics produced a continual stream of 'teaching' and because he was able to disentangle himself from that enough to gain some fairly distilled higher thought forms, his words began to ensare those listening like a web. The glue or stickiness came in the form of creating enough insightful space between his ideas that those listening were able to relieve themselves of useless suffering.

He assumes the title tantric master and yet it isn't at all clear whether he wasn't in fact harming more than he helped. The few nuggets I gleamed far underweighed the mass of red flags et al. I found opposing his legitimacy as a true spiritual teacher.

My journey into Yoga

I've been grinding online over meditation and Tantric info. I'm learning bit by bit, but the next step is to visit Ariel's puja (recurring gathering) and see if I'm accepted. One of the major things I read earlier today was how the Transmission of Tantric enlightenment is given by the woman and the man has basically no control over his initiation, it is up to a goddess to make the invitation.

I wonder if I have violated that code past redemption? It's very interesting looking back to recognize the resistance I felt when re-pitching my proposal and whatever was undoubtedly directly expressing a real conscious attitude on her part.

I'll have to ask.

The Romantic Prospect

For second there I thought, could this be possible? After the first few romances in life, the idea or possibility splits and evolves into what happened and the times that fooled you. Faced with the pain of having been fooled, developing sensitivity to one's own weaknesses or limitations in the matter becomes important, just like everything else in life.

My latest opportunity to grind on this is in full swing right now. From the very beginning, I was haunted by starry visions and what not, the usual thing. And, suddenly, there has been an enormous quiet just after I turned up the volume. I don't recall this being part of the dance before, and while a pause may represent a prior committment, without that it represents at least some degree of flakiness which doesn't represent the level of goddess which I can ally myself with.

To recap then, starry eyed adoration isn't necessarily a precursor to anything, and is certainly one of the biggest weaknesses I suffer in this life. The realization that I cannot just give it up ethically for the very thing that matters most to me: Love, hurts.

But there it is, my very own heart lies to me, and would lead me into the abyss of oblivion in the bat of an eye. To survive then means setting aside my deeper desires until certain conditions have been verified to exist. And, in this paradigm of romantic desire, discovering women with potential but unable to satisfy such an important role is atrocious, however I don't have to suffer with them anymore. This is my wish, and at least I can tell myself things are better because I know what I've avoided in the long run by suspending my desire.

Is there a higher road than this remains a question.

And now, here you are, a goddess ...

Goddess I Love

So much labor that amounts now to dust
All love and light played to your beauty, a crush
And yet you are even more perfect tonight
In little picture’s hush, I have always known this
And how overwhelmed I am by your essence.
With you in my embrace, I contemplate bliss.
That state of reaching the very thing missed.
Beautiful Goddess of Sacred Light, I love you.

July 2000

Feeling the Crest of a Wave

All the signals, facts, circumstances which I'm finding in my process of discovery associated with a healer I've chosen and the spiritual disipline of tantra itself are amazingly synchronous and overwhelmingly symbolic for a major transformation in my life. I'm still carrying around the baggage of my past failed love affairs at this time however, and will continue to do so until I get to spend some time with Ariel and determine the reality of what she may or may not have to offer me. The resurgence of hope is always a bad sign I think, one to signal a careful examination of to just what degree mechanical mind is responding to the idea of leaving behind this desert in my existence.

After spending several days now researching many different points of view about Tantra, I have the impression that it could very easily be the best next step for me to traverse given its focus on the male female sexual union as primary and at the core of what is spiritually possible. I have to admit though to having some fairly permament resistence to the elements making up its history, a story which is a overdramatized metaphor for the insights and realizations which together went into that body of wisdom at that time.

Ariel is the most beautiful goddess I've encountered yet, all fresh and innocent, and clearly not expressing her creativity over the top, oversaturation seems so much of the time to be part of the female model. Anyway, I have nothing else yet on tap as far as self development, AND this is really something I can't afford to correct but haven't a clue about as yet, for now.

It's What You Want

Hey...spent the weekend in a chill, as if anything is new around here to write about, right? Well, I did crack open a book called, The Radical Acceptance to Everything. It was a good echo or perspective on suffering and its offer on how to respond, to heal ourselves and others. I'm definitely going back for more.

I also spent a few minutes listening to some podcasts by a local Tantric Goddess (don't know all the particular distinctions in that disipline and study, so forgive me if she's called something else) named Devi, which brought me to a higher state above the bored and fearfully defeated state of apathy which I have been looking directly down the barrel at, more and more. That event horizon's darkness was as close in recent days as I've ever known it to be, and the little reading I did was spot on with respect to options and changing the direction of my being.

Small steps are still steps, they matter just as much as big steps. That's why it's important never to judge one's amount of progress in the negative, except in very very special cases having to do with turns and turnabouts, etc.

I heard from an old flame as well! I still love Stephie deeply, mostly for her grace and intelligence, but almost certainly as much for her feminine charm and poise. Her love helped me to withstand the loss of confidence in my aging mother. Maybe next week I will feel better and up to the task of yelling at her (mom) over the phone just so she can hear me. Sounds funny doesn't it, but if I don't yell she can't understand what I'm saying. She no longer writes or emails, communication, has all but ceased to take place between us.

To remember monuments in one's past which no longer exist in life has been a new mode for me lately, and I still haven't understood what I'm supposed to see or feel in regards to these kinds of memories. Mostly what I get is simply how different those earlier days were, and how opportune they were compared to what is taking place today. There is a balance to this however. The attitude which was missing then, I have begun to consciously develop today, even while the possibilities which they so deserve remain chained to my memory.

That's enough irony from this greybeard tonight. Peace and Love.